When Joy Oladokun started playing guitar in middle school, she wrote songs intended for audiences of one—her mom after a bad day at work, her friend who failed a math test. “I would write songs for my friends who were going through hard times,” Oladoku, who describes herself as the shy daughter of Nigerian immigrants, […]
“Sun Ra used to tell us: ‘I don’t want to hear what you know. I want to hear what you don’t know,’” longtime Arkestra member Marshall Allen says of the approach inculcated by the group’s founder over 70 years ago. While that idea may sound like a koan, the 99-year-old Allen explains that this concept […]
photo: Sanjay Suchak *** It all began rather casually, as these things often do. Dave Matthews was sitting on a couch in his band’s home studio, fumbling with an acoustic guitar in search of a lick. He soon landed on something that prompted longtime Dave Matthews Band recording engineer Rob Evans to take the initiative […]